


doves and ravens fly the same

by daemons



Series: death becomes him [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Heaven, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Original Character(s), Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-17 22:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18973462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daemons/pseuds/daemons
Summary: He’s no longer living, but not dead. Half in the void, half out of it. At the mercy of these humans and his ghosts alike.orklaus dies for his brother. again and again. him and god get to know each other a bit better.(based on a prompt: diego and klaus get captured by someone from diego's past. diego has to watch klaus die over and over again)





	1. i. klaus

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer alert: i do not own any of these characters, and make no profit off of the things I write. 
> 
> title from glory by dermot kennedy.
> 
> unbeta-ed because i am a lone wolf (aroooo). 
> 
> set sometime after the not-apocalypse :)

The sunlight comes out of nowhere, sending a red-hot flush across his chest and face. The back of his eyelids become a dark red, the light trying to fight it’s way in. He gives in, eyes fluttering open, and stared at the canopy of trees above him. The glaring sun has risen through them, warming his always-cold skin, the wind pleasant as it ruffles the tree branches. The slightly rough feel of a carefully paved road presses into his back. He can hear birds singing. 

It’s all a very familiar picture. The sweet chime of a bicycle bell only confirms it. 

She peers into his direct line of sight, blocking the sun with her large straw sunhat. It has a pink ribbon fixed to it. He can see the color this time around, and it makes him blink in surprise. God, he supposes, looks incredibly annoyed at him. 

“It’s you,” she says simply, and he sits up gingerly. She steps back, one foot on the pedal of her bike, hands grasped on the handlebars. There are multi-colored ribbons attached to the ends, and a bouquet of brightly colored flowers in the woven basket. 

“Apparently so,” Klaus replies, and runs a hand through his hair. His head thrums slightly, like a headache, but without the pain. Figures, it’d be a pretty shit heaven if he could feel pain, “Why am I here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” God says, and extends a small hand to him. He takes it, and stumbles to his feet, automatically brushing down the front of his shirt even though there isn’t any dirt. 

He doesn’t know why he’s here. Why he is most probably, if it’s anything like last time, dead, _again._

“How did I die?” he asks, mainly directed to himself, somewhat directed towards God. 

She frowns at him, creasing her forehead, “Shock. You shouldn’t be here.”

Klaus feels a strong sense of deju-vu, “Shock?”

God sighs, “Yes, shock. I really don’t want you here, you know.”

“Tough shit,” Klaus says, and God glares at him, “Sorry. How did I die of shock?”

God shrugs, “Internal injuries. Bleeding. Ruptured organs. You died of hypovolemic shock. Quite painfully.”

“Christ, you’re blunt,” Klaus mutters, and crosses his arms across his chest, “What the fuck happened to me?”

God clenches her small fists, “Stop swearing. You need to go now.”

With that, she turns back to her bike, throwing her leg over the seat and ringing the bell again. It chimes sharply down the picturesque trail. Klaus gapes at her, reaching out as if to grab her bike. 

“Go where?” he demands, feeling a rush of terror through his chest. 

God waves her hand, like a mockery of goodbye, “Back, Klaus. You have to go back.”

Darkness slams into him like a concrete slab. 

-

 _Klaus!_  
  
Someone is crying, calling his name, distant and thick like he’s hearing it through water. Klaus inhales like he’s drowning, his lungs burning from lack of oxygen, and his body _hurts_. Everywhere is on fire and frozen with ice at the same time. He can feel something shift inside him, blood flowing again, organs stitching themselves up, everything falling back into it’s proper place like a jigsaw puzzle. He coughs, splutters, mouth tasting like copper. 

“What the fuck?” a voice he doesn’t recognize cuts through his confused haze, “Didn’t you just kill this fucker?”

“Yeah,” another voice responds, higher, feminine, sounding panicked, “He was gone.”

Klaus blinks blearily at the ceiling above him. It’s wooden, dark. He can see light just out his view, a dim glow. The air smells like dirt, and blood- a sweet, metal smell- and something acidic. Klaus twitches his fingers experimentally. His hands are bound together with some sort of duct tape. His feet too, he realizes, trying to roll his bare ankles. 

“Klaus!” 

That’s _Diego’s_ voice. What was Diego doing here? Wait, what was Klaus doing here himself?

Everything comes back to him like a kick to the head. His chest seizes up in terror, he opens his mouth to- he doesn’t know. Scream, maybe? But before he has a chance, hands are gripping him roughly by his upper arms and he’s thrown up and down into a wooden chair. 

“Klaus,” Diego says again, and Klaus properly looks at him, feeling queasy. His brother looks fucking terrible. He’s tied to a chair, similar to the one Klaus has been pushed unceremoniously into, and his bare chest is mottled with bruises and dried blood. There’s a dark, crimson patch on his forehead, making his hair stick to his forehead. His eyes are red, watery, one of them turning purple and weeping. 

“Di,” he says back, softly, his voice rasping. 

He remembers things, in flashes. He remembers struggling on the street, he remembers Diego’s knives spinning around him, he remembers waking up at this unknown house, tied to a chair next to Diego. He remembers Diego talking with the two kidnappers, a man and a woman, and they knew who he was. Something about Diego killing their brother, maybe? Something to do with his vigilante stunts. The headache that Klaus didn’t have in heaven is definitely making itself known here. His memory is shot. 

He definitely remembers being kicked, being punched, over and over again. Things slammed into him, things breaking inside of him with every hit, _vital_ things, splitting and tearing and he remembers gasping into the concrete floor, blood bubbling in his mouth, vision going hazy. He remembers Diego screaming. 

_Oh_ , he thinks. So that’s how he died.

“Klaus,” Diego says again, and Klaus looks at him again. His brother looks terrified, horrified, like he can’t believe Klaus is sitting there, “Klaus, I, I. Are you--”

Klaus grins at him, “Never better.”

Something slams into the side of his head. He hears Diego cry out again, and then the black comes back in.

 _Shit._  
-

God is glaring at him again, “Klaus.”

Klaus groans, rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes, “Am I dead?”

“Obviously.”

Something touches his forehead, gentle, soft fingers. He relaxes, slightly, and then something pulls in his chest and---

-

He wakes up with a gasp on the wooden floor. Diego’s boots are in his eyeline, he’s on his side, and he hears one of their captors yell; _What the fucking fuck is going on?_ He’s hauled into the chair again, he wobbles slightly. Diego is staring at him, he stares back, there are tears trailing down Diego’s face. He looks shocked, this time around. The side of Klaus’s head feels damp, and he raises his bound hands to the side of his head. It’s sticky, wet, but there’s no damage that he can feel. Huh. 

One of the captors comes into his view, looking down at him, frowning. There’s a brick in his hand, dripping with blood. There’s a sound of heeled boots clicking to Klaus’ right, and a slender hand lands on his shoulder. He jumps. Nails dent into his skin through his shirt. 

“You didn’t hit him hard enough,” the woman’s voice above his shoulder drawls, almost seductive.

“Bullshit,” the man says, shoulders puffing up, “He was fucking dead.”

The nails dig in, sharp, and Klaus winces despite himself, “Clearly not.”

The man growls, and he lurches forward, towards Diego. Diego doesn’t flinch as the man pulls his hair back, baring Diego’s throat. Klaus struggles, fruitlessly, and the hand on his shoulder digs in so hard he whimpers. The man leans forward, slow, until he’s almost nose-to-nose with Diego. Diego just glares back. 

“I promise you,” the man says, “You will watch him die. Like we had to watch _our_ brother die. You will watch him fucking suffer.”

Klaus swears he’s heard this conversation before. Diego too, obviously, by the lack of surprise in his face. But there’s still terror there, a hopelessness that Klaus has only seen a few times before. _When Mom waved to them from a collapsing window, his arms locked onto Diego’s as he yelled and yelled._  
  
“Leave him alone,” Diego hisses, “Leave him the fuck _alone!”_

The man laughs, shoves Diego back as he twists his head to face Klaus. With his other hand, brick still clasped in it, he motions to the woman behind Klaus, “Do it.”

Diego kicks and yells, and the nails disappear from Klaus’ shoulder. He hears a clicking sound, like a mechanism being sprung, and then there’s a shock of cold pressed to his throat. He barely has time to register that it’s a knife before it’s been dug in, then across, a sharp _biting_ agony that splits his skin and sends a drench of warmth down his collarbone. He chokes, but no sound comes out his mouth, throat swallowing convulsively again and again. His fingers turn cold, he tries to scream but _nothing comes out._ He has a brief flash of--

_Allison, writhing on a floor, clutching at her throat, eyes wide and frightened._

There’s a pressure on the side of his neck, sharp and blunt at the same, until his flesh gives and he feels blood splurt out, and the last thing he sees as the now-familiar haze creeps into his vision is Diego’s sobbing face. 

-

He wakes up in a field this time. The grass caresses his skin, his fingers, and the warmth of the sun is back. He can smell lavender, hear a bee buzzing somewhere nearby, maybe the sound of a running river. 

The grass crunches next to him, like someone is stepping on it. He knows, of course, who it is. He opens his eyes, again, and looks at the black mary-jane shoes, complete with frilly lace socks. 

“You’re making a habit of this, Klaus,” God says, and she folds her legs underneath her as she sits next to him. There’s a glass in her hand, ice clinking around in what looks like lemonade, and she sips on the red and white curly straw. 

Klaus turns his head back to the sky. It’s a beautiful, impossible blue, and the clouds are fluffy and white and perfect. The city he grew up, the streets that he lived in, the sky was always grey and rainy, rarely did he see a perfect spring day like this, like the weather that heaven offered.

He was always a stormy creature. By nature, he was always cold, and he liked it. Rain ran through his veins. 

But he enjoyed the warmth. Maybe, because, in heaven, there were no ghosts. No demons. Nothing to haunt him. Except a tiny, racially ambiguous, pre-pubescent girl in a sunhat, apparently. Or was he haunting her? He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t be bothered to tell.

“This is nice,” he says to the sky, to the sound of lemonade being pulled through a straw, “I want to stay here.”

“Do you really,” says God, but it doesn’t sound like a question. She sounds bored.

Klaus shrugs, the grass moving around him, “Yeah, it’s nice.”

Something occurs to him, deep in the back of his head, making his heart swell, and he sits up and swivels to look at God. She stares back at him, wide-eyed, “Can I see Dave?”

She sighs, putting her drink down next to her, “No, Klaus.”

His heart stutters, “Why not? He’s here, yeah?”

God purses her lips, “Yes. Not here, specifically. But he’s somewhere around.”

Klaus wants to grab her, shake her, “So I _can_ see him?”

“No.”

He clenches his teeth, grating, “Why _not_?” 

God sends him a look, an angry, annoyed look, “Because you _can’t_ be here. Do you really want me to get him, let him see you, only for me to send you back again?” 

Klaus gapes at her, “I--”

“I know you don’t,” God says, and picks up her drink again. 

“So don’t send me back,” Klaus whispers. The sun feels like a hug, “Just. Let me find him. Here.”

God looks sad. It’s new. Her brown eyes are wide, her mouth turned down at the corners, “I’m sorry, Klaus, but no.”

He wants to cry. He wants to scream. He opens his mouth to say something back, but the little girl waves at him and he panics, writhes, and the darkness rushes up to meet him--

-

He chokes on his blood, head snapping back, skin threading itself back together as he struggles. He tries to feel for his throat, an automatic response, and his hands are slick with blood but there’s no wound, no gash, nothing but shiny new skin. It’s agony, every single time. He feels like a part of him _does_ die. Rots away. Further into the void he goes. His heart thumps, so so painfully. 

The woman yells, in what sounds like fear, and he can hear their captors suddenly devolve into frantic arguing, yelling. He doesn’t blame them. There’s no way you can write off someone having their throat cut, bleeding out, only to come back to life however long after with nothing to show for it. 

He agrees, it’s fucked up.

“Klaus,” Diego breathes, voice hoarse, and Klaus looks at him. He smiles reassuringly, but it probably comes off as grimace, “Klaus, what’s going on? I don’t know what’s going on.”

How do you begin to explain it? _Diego, I can’t die. Well, I can die, I just get booted from heaven every time, and get sent back here. Yes, heaven is real. God is real, I assume, and She’s a teenage girl. She’s a bit of a bitch too, if I’m being honest._

“I thought his power was seeing the dead or some shit,” one of their captors yelled, shaking Klaus back to reality, “Not, not being able to fucking _die_.”

“Who cares what you thought? They’re both part of that weird freak school, who knows what fucked up shit they’re capable of? Don’t they have a brother that is a monster?”

 _That’s rich_ , Klaus thinks, and then recoils in offense at the mention of Ben. 

“Hey!” he tries to yell without thinking, the sound hoarse, protectiveness rushing through his chest. He hears Diego growl something similar.

The woman- _he wishes he knew their names_ \- spins around to glare at him, wide-eyed, feral looking. There’s something hovering over her shoulder, a thick shadow, tendrils creeping over her angular face. It stinks of death. Klaus wonders whether it’s a ghost of a victim or part of _him_. 

“You can’t die,” she hisses. Klaus just blinks at her. “Why the fuck can you not die?”

Klaus grimaces, his throat still tender, vocal chords still healing. He holds up his hands, _hello and goodbye_. “I’m a natural wonder, baby.”

The woman stares, hands flexing at her sides. There’s something akin to fright in her dark eyes. She’s frightened. Of him. Of _him._ The man whispers something in her ear, Klaus can hear Diego struggling to no avail next to him. He doesn’t stop staring them down. 

“What do you want?” Klaus finally says, and the man stops whispering, “What do you want from us?”

The man steps around his partner, head cocked, “That’s none of your fucking business.”

“I mean,” Klaus croaks, “You’ve made it our business.” This conversation seems absurd. 

“They want me,” Diego speaks up, “I… I…”

“Killed our brother!” the woman yells, voice cutting through the tension like the knife she used to slash Klaus’ throat, “You murdered him!”

“He was hurting people!” Diego yells back, “He was… I-I had to stop him!” 

The woman stumbles forward, backhands Diego across the face. Klaus flinches, the sound of flesh hitting flesh reverberating in his chest. Diego, to his eternal credit, doesn’t even grimace, just stares the woman down.

“Your brother,” he says, “Was a monster. I didn’t have a choice.”

The woman screeches, high-pitched and animalistic, and swipes at Diego’s face. Her nails scratch thin red lines down his cheek. She fumbles at her waistband, hand clenched around something dark-- a gun. Klaus barely registers what she’s doing until she has the barrell facing him, dead-set between his eyes. Panic rears in his chest. He doesn’t think he can come back from a bullet to the head. 

“No, no, no, no, no,” he whispers, to himself, a mantra. The woman hears, grins, lips snarled. Diego thrashes in his chair.

“D-Don’t hurt him,” Diego begs, words stumbling across his tongue, “You- You have me. Please. Please, please, please, let him _g-go_.” 

The woman pats Diego’s cheek with her other hand. The other captor, the man, is watching with a glint in his eye, an almost bored bystander. The gun clicks.

_“Please---”_

The woman pulls the trigger, Diego screams- a loud, broken sound that Klaus has never heard before and--

-

This time, Klaus yells in frustration when he’s greeted by the warm blue sky. He clambers to his feet, picks up a loose rock, and hurls it at the nearest tree. It ricochets off with a splintering of bark, and he clenches his fists, nails digging painlessly into his palms, breathing heavily. The sound of a tire crunches up behind him. _Ding, ding, ding._

“Go away,” he snaps, not even looking at her, “Just. Let me… please.”

He can’t see her face. He assumes it’s bored, annoyed, angry, all of the things she _always_ is.

“I’m sorry,” God says instead, “You need to go.”

He just stares ahead at the dented tree, shoulders shaking. He feels a hand touch his back, along his spine, and then the familiar- all too familiar- darkness creeps along his vision. 

“You’re not sorry,” he whispers, before it pulls him under like a wave and--

-

He’s back in the chair, head dropped forward, staring at his blood-splattered feet. A single, crushed, bullet clatters to the floorboards. His entire body is shrieking in pain. The dark swirling void sneaks tendrils into his chest. He giggles, hysterically. He hears Diego gasp, a watery sound. Someone walks closer to him, grabs his chin and shoves his head back. 

Klaus grins at them, hisses. The man looks _terrified_.

“Well,” the woman says, voice shaky, “There’s no way around that.” 

“Who are you?” the man says, hushed, “Who the _fuck_ are you?”

Klaus wants to say something witty. _Your worst nightmare_ But he can’t, not with the agony that’s building in his heart. He feels. He feels. He feels dead. So he just bares his teeth, a feral look, and the man drops his hand like he’s been burnt. 

Diego is making a whimpering noise. Such a broken, _heavy_ noise. Klaus wants to reach for him. He’s never heard his brother sound like that, ever. Stoic, sarcastic, Diego. 

The Woman- Klaus doesn’t know her name, either of their names, so she is The Woman, capitalized- is looking at him shrewdly. The fear has clearly dissipated somewhat. 

She was right, after all. They have a sibling who can summon creatures from hell from his torso. Not-dying isn’t the weirdest thing to come out of their fucked up little Academy. There’s something calculating in her eyes that Klaus doesn’t like one bit. 

“Does this hurt you?” she asks, and it’s directed at Diego. Diego yells at her, a harsh guttural sound, and she just smirks, “It must hurt. Seeing him die, over and over. You know it hurts him.”

Diego is shaking. Klaus feels frozen, mute. He realizes, stupidly, that he is just an prop here. He was always going to die to hurt his brother. An eye for an eye.

Many eyes for one eye, he thinks. So, what now? He can’t die. They’ve proven it. He can’t die. He won’t die.

“Maybe this is a gift,” The Woman says, putting a hand on her partner’s arm, who is still staring at Klaus like a ghost, “A blank canvas. As many times as we want.”

“He has to die,” The Man says, hushed, “Everyone does.”

“Maybe something will stick,” The Woman says, and she’s looking at Klaus with something that is absolutely terrifying. An excitement. He’s a puzzle she will solve. 

He wants to throw up. Everything hurts, _so fucking much_. 

The knife glints in The Woman’s hand. He swallows, nervously, and looks up to the ceiling as she moves closer. He hopes that little girl is watching, somewhere, as the knife begins to trace patterns on his face, his neck, his skin, before being driven in to his side, unceremoniously and quick.

Klaus gags, the pain deep and hot. Something gives in his side, like something is tearing. The knife twists, he yells in hurt, and then it’s wrenched out as quickly as it was put in. Warmth gushes on his skin. 

The knife goes in again. Hot white noise is rushing in his ears, the noises coming from Diego are muffled and deep underwater. He can’t breathe, every inhale is agony, and it’s like trying to get air from only a straw. Everything narrows down, then, to the struggle to breathe, the white-hot stabs of pain that keep blindsided him.

He coughs, chest squeezing like a vice, something hot dribbling from his lips. He squeezes his eyes shut, lungs burning like they’re on fire, gagging, coughing. 

They stop. The knife stops. He hears footsteps retreat, voices disappear. He tries to gasp, to breathe in, and his chest feels like a deflated balloon, unable to hold air. 

He hears a scraping noise, and swivels his head to see Diego- still bound- writhing and bucking to move the chair closer to Klaus. He blinks, tiredly, as Diego finally hops the chair close enough that their knees knock together. Some semblance of comfort. 

“Klaus,” Diego breathes, his voice cracked, “I-I-I… I-I’m s-so sorry.” 

It’s almost comforting, Diego’s old stutter, breaking through. Some flicker of light from their childhood. The smell of Mom’s perfume. The sound of Vanya’s violin. Ben’s laugh. 

Klaus coughs, blood splattering out onto his chin, and Diego makes a sound like a stifled sob. 

“S’okay, Di,” Klaus rasps, “s’ okay.”

He can’t speak more than that. He looks at their connected knees, thinks about how if he could move his hands he could try and free Diego. He’s not tied to a chair- Diego is. If he could only move his hands, if he could lift his arms, his head, anything. 

He hurts, so badly, he wants that darkness back. He sobs, a wretched noise, and his body wracks with the ensuing agony. Diego is saying something, discombobulated pleas, maybe, but Klaus doesn’t know. The void creeps in his peripheral, a shadow haze, and Klaus welcomes it with open arms this time. He can feel himself slump forward, onto Diego.

He wants to cry in joy at the comforting nothing. 

-

When he feels the sun on his face, this time, he doesn’t open his eyes. He wants to cry, wants to scream, pound his fists into the soft dirt and sob and sob until he can’t anymore. 

He knows she’s there at the sound of soft footsteps in the grass, but he ignores her, turning onto his side. He breathes in the dirt, inhales quick and panicked and shuddering. There’s a moment of rustling next to him, and then a hand on his arm. A comforting touch, a caress, almost.

“For what it’s worth,” God says. Her voice is very small, soft, like she’s talking to a spooked animal, “I am very sorry that you have to suffer like you do.” 

Klaus hiccups, “But I don’t have to, do I? You can _do something_.”

There’s no answer, just the hand rubbing his upper arm mindlessly. 

“Just let me stay,” Klaus whispers, “Let me find Dave. Don’t send me back. They’ll keep killing me. I can’t-- I can’t--”

He can’t keep this up. It takes a part of him every-time he’s sent back into that dank house, listening to his brother cry and scream, feel a part of his soul break off and disappear into the constant void that’s been following him around since before he could walk. 

“Klaus,” God says, and her voice is sympathetic, “You need to be down there. You need to be alive.”

 _“Why?”_ Klaus hisses, desperate. 

The hand pats him, gently, “It’s what you were created for.”

The darkness hits him like a punch before he can ask what she means.

-

He doesn’t react when he comes back this time. He jostles Diego’s knee, hears his brother ask after him, _are you okay, Klaus, god, I’m so sorry_  
and something spiteful and ugly rears in Klaus’ chest when he hears their captors re-enter the room.

Stares them down, doesn’t flinch when they drag Diego’s chair back. The Woman cocks her head at him, knife glinting.

Klaus bares his teeth at her.

“Do it, bitch,” he spits.

-

They drown him next.

Hold his head down in a bucket. He would laugh, if his lungs weren’t filling rapidly with dark water. He eagerly awaits the inevitable void.

-

The sun hits his face, the trees sway in breeze, and Klaus jumps to his feet and whips around, searching for _her._

He screams and roars at the trees, this fucking joke of a paradise, and demands that she _show her face._

She doesn’t show. But Klaus knows she’s there, the heavy presence, like a hug but filled with spikes and nails. He hates her, in that moment.

He’s dragged back mid-scream.

-

He begins to lose track of it all. Life and death, blending into one. They snap his neck. God looks at him, bored, snaps her fingers. They cave his head in with a brick. God touches his cheek before he even wakes up and he’s back. 

He always comes back. It seems to simultaneously delight and frustrate his captors. Like they were hoping, this time, he wouldn’t wake up and whatever point they were trying to drive home would finally stick. 

The void envelopes him, every time. The demons scream at him. The ghosts wail. Their cold, spindly fingers tug at him, grab him. He’s no longer living, not dead. Half in the void, half out of it. At the mercy of these humans and his ghosts alike. He screams, he begs, he gargles when they cut his throat, thrashes and kicks. 

He stopped hearing Diego a long time ago. His brother’s voice gave out a few deaths ago. Sometimes, he catches glimpses of his brother and he wishes he hadn’t. Diego looks _broken_ , silent crying, silent screaming, eyes dark and haunted. 

Klaus stops trying to comfort him. There’s no comfort here.

They drive the knife into his heart.

-

Klaus lunges at God when he spots her, the bicycle nowhere to be seen. She merely steps out of his grasp, and he wails at her. He feels like an animal, no longer human, just one of his many grotesque demons that haunt him. 

_“Let me die!”_ he screams. 

She gazes at him. Her eyes are no longer bored, no longer annoyed. They are desperately sad. She shakes her head, ribbons bouncing.

He sobs, collapsing to his knees, feeling the dirt under his palm. He scrapes at the dirt, he can smell blood and hear choppers overheard, hear whistling _demonic_ noises _Dave Dave Dave no no no please can I get a medic here please God no no_ He heaves, gags, vomits up nothing on this dirt road in heaven. He cries, and cries, until his voice cracks, snot and spit running down his lips. God just stares at him.

 _“Why!”_ he gasps, to the ground, to God, to Dave, to anyone or anything listening to him.

Those shiny black mary-jane shoes come towards him, stop, and there’s a sensation of fingers running through his hair, patting at his wild curls. A gentle, loving gesture. 

“If you die,” God says, softly, “If you don’t come back. They will kill your brother.”

Klaus whimpers, “They’ll kill him anyway.”

He feels broken. Selfish. He wants to save Diego but he doesn’t know how anymore. Just bring Diego here with him. They’ll be happy together. Living is a torturous, awful way of existing, Klaus decides. 

“Help is coming,” God whispers, “I promise. They’ll be there, soon. And you can’t be here.”

He just squeezes his eyes shut as the void takes him home again. 

-

He wakes up, coughs out some cold congealed blood in his mouth, and desperately tries to find Diego. He doesn’t even get a chance before someone grabs his mouth, wrenching it open, and liquid is being poured down his throat. It burns, eating at him. 

He screams in agony, a sound he hasn’t made in a few deaths. 

It hurts so fucking much. The ghosts have stopped talking. Have stopped wailing at him. They just hover around him, looking so miserable. 

_Come to us, Klaus. Join us._

He wishes it was that easy. The acid, the liquid, whatever the fuck it was, burns at his insides, and he yells and yells as it eats at him.

The darkness is slow. The void is hesitant. It caresses him, soft tendrils, like it’s apologizing. _We’re sorry, Klaus._ He screams until he can’t anymore. His limbs seize, jerk, against his will. His screams get cut like a marionette string. His heart splutters in shock, slows, stopping. He sighs in relief. It’s short lived, but it’s something.

-

“This is hell, isn’t it?”

God stops where she’s been walking. There’s a bird on her shoulder, this time. Maybe she’s had it the whole time, and Klaus never noticed. It’s a white dove, because of course it is, and it stares him down with same knowing look, ruffles its feathers. 

“Klaus,” she says. Her eyes are wide, “No.”

“Then why does it feel like hell? You’re lying. You’re the Devil.”

He’s snapped. He knows he has. He’s ranting at a teenage girl in some weird fucking movie set Italian forest white picket fence bullshit, accusing her of being the Devil.

Maybe he died the first time. Maybe this is just the final spurts of his dying brain, trying to stay alive. Maybe he’s still overdosing in an ambulance. Maybe he’s still on that sticky club floor, trying to find Luther. 

Maybe he died in that mausoleum all those years ago. 

“I’m not my sister,” God says, without heat, “It’s not that simple.”

“What’s not that simple?” Klaus asks.

“Hell. Heaven. Humanities’ notions of it.”

“Then explain it,” Klaus demands, “I have all the time in the universe! I’m dead!”

He yells the last part, hysterically, at the canopy of trees. God just blinks at him. 

“You are in neither,” she finally says, “This isn’t your heaven. This is not your hell. Because you can’t move on.”

“Because you’re _not letting me!”_ Klaus screeches.

The white dove makes a chirping noise. God shrugs. 

“I don’t like you,” she says, and Klaus gets ready to yell again, but she holds a hand up, “I don’t like you because you are not meant to exist.”

Klaus gapes at her, “I--”

“Do you think you are natural?” God asks, “You, always with one foot in the grave? You are the gateway between the living and the dead, Klaus. You don’t belong here, or in hell, or wherever you think you should end up. Maybe one day, but not today. Right now, you can’t be here.”

She shudders. It’s such a human move that Klaus just stares. 

“You stink of my sister,” she mutters, “And she would think you are too much of me. You cannot die. The messenger of the dead and the living cannot die. _Death_ cannot die.”

Klaus is so _fucking_ confused, “What--”

“You’ll be okay, soon enough,” God says, and waves at him.

“No, no, wait, _wait!”_

-

He wakes up, coughs, wriggles his feet and his hands, and feels something snap in his brain. No more.

He rolls over, surveys the room. He doesn’t know where anything is, where anyone is. _Death cannot die._ He sees Diego, slumped in his chair, and he focuses. All the pain thrumming through his body, all the breaths he struggles to take, and he crawls. Like a bug, a distorted army crawl, one painful thump of his knees on the floorboard at a time. 

He reaches Diego, grabs his brother’s calf in his two hands, and Diego flinches violently. He’s covered in blood, his own and Klaus’. He reminds Klaus, startling, of Ben when they were children. Staring blankly at nothing, covered in blood, trembling. 

“You- You- Y- Y- You are n-not real,” his brother whimpers. 

“Diego,” Klaus rasps, “Di. Number Two. Listen to me. It’s part of my powers, Di. I can’t die. She sends me back, every time. Okay. We’ll talk about it later but right now we _need_ to get out of here. Diego.”

Diego is shaking his head, refusing to look at him. His brother is trembling, shaking so hard that Klaus can feel himself vibrating. 

“Di,” he begs.

Nothing.

Klaus squeezes his eyes shut, tears dripping down his cheeks. It’s hopeless. He inhales sharply, sniffs, and drops down until he can crawl around the back of Diego’s chair. He focuses on his brother’s hands, white from lack of blood flow, rope digging in angrily. Klaus counts himself lucky he only got duct tape.

There’s no sign of their captors. Maybe they thought Klaus was actually dead this time. Maybe they were coming back with even worse ways to kill them both. Sadistic fucks. 

His movement is severely limited, what with the bone-deep exhaustion and agony he’s in, plus his bound wrists. But he gets his fingers in the knot tying his brother to this chair, and starts trying to work it out. It feels hopeless, but he can’t not do anything. He can’t wait around for death again. 

Something bangs outside of the wall opposite him. Muffled yells. Diego flinches again, pulling taut against his bonds. Klaus feels panic rise in his throat, keeps trying to untie the ropes. 

There are multiple voices filtering through, and Klaus can’t recognize them. A small kernel of hope plants itself in his heart. The knots are loosening, his fingers are bloodied and raw from his attempts, but he keeps tugging. 

A door flies open, Klaus rears back as The Woman stumbles in. She’s bleeding, face purple and red, clutching her side. She limps in, dragging her leg behind her, and raises her gun at Diego. Her hands are shaking. 

Klaus moves quicker than he ever has. He grabs Diego, pulls him back, covers his brother with his own thin frame. There’s a bang, and Klaus dives. Both him and Diego collapse forward, the chair clattering with them. 

The bullet hits his back first, propelling him forward, his forehead digging into Diego’s shoulder. He knows the bullet leaves him, scraping his heart, bursting blood vessels and muscles and flesh and nerves. It will imbed itself in the dank wooden floor. 

He grasps Diego closer to him, buries his face in his brother’s chest. He can’t move, his heart stuttering with the lack of oxygen and blood that the bullet has left in its wake. He needs to move, to protect Diego. There’s another bang, and Klaus flinches.

The pain doesn't come. There’s a thump of a body behind him. He wants to turn around, see what’s happening, but he can’t move. He gasps, futile, into Diego. He thinks Diego might’ve passed out, there’s no sound or movement beneath him except the slight rise and fall of his brother’s chest. 

Someone is calling his name. Diego’s name. It sounds like Ben. Klaus frowns, what was Ben doing here? 

A hand grabs him, he flails, and he’s looking up at Ben’s frightened face. Hands pressed to the wound in his chest, but Klaus know he’s done again. _It’s okay Benny_ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t have enough air left in his lungs. _It’s okay. I’ll be back_. Ben’s mouth is moving, he can see other figures floating around him, someone pulls Diego out of his arms and he cries out, grabbing for him, but the void is back and it’s painfully gentle this time.

It brushes against his cheek, _it’s okay, baby, we’ve got you_ It holds him like a long-needed hug as it drags him beneath the water.

-

He welcomes the sun as it beats down on his face. The smell of the trees, the grass tickling his bare arms. He blinks his eyes open, blearily, and smiles unbidden at the clouds above him. He should sit up, stand, run or something. But he doesn’t. He lets the field swallow him, a bed of grass and sweet smelling flowers and birds chirping. 

Tears well in his eyes. He just wants to stay here. He wants to find Dave. He doesn’t want to go back down to that hell. Even if him and Diego escape, even if that was their siblings there to rescue them, he still would have to live. Live in the constant throes of addiction- always, always wanting to numb himself. Always craving, to the point of agony, the things that made him feel so good. Always surrounded by the unforgiving dead, always surrounded by gore and sadness. The tears slip out of his eyelids, drip down into the grass next to him. 

God takes longer than he thought she would; he’d been lying in the field for a good few minutes before he hears her coming. He listens as she sits down, kicking, and then he opens her eyes to see her lay down next to him, making their heads parallel. She looks at the side of his face, and Klaus looks back at the blue sky. 

“You’re not in hell, Klaus,” she says, unprompted, “I don’t like you. But you aren’t bad. You are not a bad person. You won’t end up in agony.”

Klaus blinks. He hadn’t expected that.

“So,” he says, “What is hell?”

God giggles, “Now, _that’s_ a complicated question. And one I won’t answer for you. Hell doesn’t really exist. It’s not that easy.”

Klaus sighs, “Nothing is that easy, is it?”

He looks over at God and she smiles, “No, unfortunately.” 

Fingers brush against his outstretched hand, interlocking, and it makes him feel warm, “I’m sorry you are destined to suffer, Klaus. I wish it wasn’t that way.”

“Do you?” Klaus asks, genuine, and God sighs.

“Yes. I don’t like you, but you are an unique creation. It pains me to see you suffer so.”

Klaus blinks back more tears. The sun reddens his cheeks. The air tastes like honey. He misses Dave so much. He misses his siblings. 

“So,” he says, conversationally, “If hell is so complicated, does that mean that, uh, ol’ Daddy Dearest is up here? In heaven?”

God frowns.

“Because,” Klaus continues, “If anyone should go to hell…”

God holds up her hand not holding Klaus, and Klaus cuts off. She looks at him seriously.

“It’s not that simple,” she says, “Your father thinks he is in paradise. But he knows, he’s seen, he will continue to see, that he has failed at the one thing he set out to do.”

Something feels heavy in Klaus’ chest. He waits God’s words with a bated breath. He wonders if this what die-hard Catholics feel like. 

“He’s seen that it’s because of him, his actions, that he failed. He sees, now, that all of you exist without him, better without him. He thought you, Klaus, would conjure him back when he died. That death was nothing to him. He was wrong. You won’t conjure him, because of what he’s done.”

God squeezes his hand gently, “He wants to be proud, and he is, but he is spiteful. He has to watch all of you, you, your brothers, your sisters, live and fail and succeed in spite of him. He thought he was doing the right thing. He was so wrong. He is being proven wrong, and he can’t do anything about it.”

“Does that sound like heaven to you, Klaus?” 

Klaus stares at the sky, the clouds becoming blurry as his eyes fill with tears. He exhales, shakily, and turns his head back to look at the little girl, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions, then?”

She shrugs, “Yes. In a way. One day all of you, all of your family, will find your peace, and then maybe your father will find his own. Everyone can be redeemed, Klaus, even in death.”

This conversation feels different. Poignant. A snapshot that Klaus wasn’t expecting. Answers to questions he never knew he asked. 

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks.

God sits up, the grass crumpled where she had been laying. She brings his hand to her lap, tracing the lines in his palm with her small finger, 

“One day, you will understand. Why you are the way you are. Why you see the things you see. Why you are always half in your world and half in the other-world. Why death will follow you and eat you before you can find your own peace.” 

Klaus stares at her, doesn’t know what to say, except, “Why?”

God lifts her hand, traces the lines on his forehead, gentle, “Because you _are_ death, my child.”

It’s with that that she moves her hand, and the sky disappears above Klaus’ head, and the void greedily takes him back. 

God is a dramatic bitch, Klaus decides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this hopped up on modafinil and instead of doing my five assignments, i decided to take a prompt on the kink meme (a godforsaken place) and run with it. chapter two is underway. listen to dermot kennedy's self-titled album pls it is fabulous. 
> 
> This is my first foray into the umbrella academy fandom. i've forgotten how annoying a03 is to use. raw text is the worst.
> 
> follow me on twitter at tahnee_louise97 for fun ramblings and memes


	2. ii. graceless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/maniicmemegirl) for a laugh.

Allison loves her brother, she does. 

She loves all of her siblings. Sure, she has her favourites- she’d never made any secret of that- but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love the others with every inch, every crevice of her heart. Even when she ran so far away from home, to the dazzling lights of Los Angeles, she would still stare at their numbers in her phone and contemplate pressing them. 

It wasn’t difficult, per say, for her to keep tabs on most them. Luther, of course, never left the Academy. Diego did MMA fighting, after the whole police fiasco. Vanya was third chair in an travelling orchestra. Klaus, well. The only updates she ever got on Number Four was when the rehab centre would call her, clinical and bored, informing her that they had lost him.

The first few times, she was enraged. _How do you lose someone?_ she had yelled down the phone at the centre, threatening all kinds of lawsuits, but after the third time a different centre had called her to inform her that, _we’re terribly sorry, Ms Hargreeves, but we can’t physically keep him here if he does not want to be here_ she had just resigned herself to a small, tired _thank you._ She would hold Claire for a long time after that phone call. 

Still, she’d pay for the next rehab centre that never stuck. The next hospital bill that came through, and she stopped reading exactly what was printed on the paper and just wrote out the cheque. Patrick understood, to an extent, but he grew less patient as the years wore on. They had multiple yelling matches in their living room, after Claire had been put to bed, about Allison constantly sending money to these new rehabs, hoping that if she threw enough at it then one day, maybe, it’ll stick. Patrick thought it was useless. 

_He’s my brother_ she protested, but she knew Patrick was right. She still wrote the cheque for the next hospital bill. She didn’t know, still doesn’t, why she kept doing it. 

She had never been overtly close to Klaus. Not beyond teaching him how to paint his nails, occasionally doing his makeup when he begged her. He’d always steal her clothes, make them stink of smoke and alcohol as he got older, always tease her ruthlessly about anything and everything. It never felt mean, though, is the thing. Klaus became cruel, and sharp, as he got older and the poison worked its way further into his veins. But not to her. There was always something soft in his teasing. 

And Allison loved him, she did, but she always kept her distance. She couldn’t help it, she told herself. 

Klaus was always an unnerving child. His skin was always a sickly pallor, he always smelt faintly of wet dirt, and there was a cold spot that always came with him. There was something about her brother that made her always faintly, bone deep, uncomfortable. It always felt, to her, like he was barely tethered to the living. It only became more pronounced with the drugs. 

Klaus always felt a bit like a ghost. Allison wonders if that’s why only he could see them. 

She has a protective streak towards him, too, to her credit. She knows they all do. He annoys the fuck out of them, always loud and jittering, always on the edge of hysterical, along with the aura of eeriness that follows him. But there’s something small about him, something vulnerable that hid in the sharp gangly angles that accompany him. His all-teeth smile, his ruddy cheeks, his halo of wild soft ringlets that Allison used to love running her fingers through until he fell fitfully asleep, or stopped twitching so much. An old thing, an ancient habit from when they were children.

It’s a painful, heartbreaking motion she’s doing now, Klaus’ far too still body sprawled across the pull down seats in Five’s run-down van. His head is in her lap, her fingers combing out his curls that he’d started growing out again, and he looks far younger than the years she knows had toiled at his body. She loves him, and this is one of the worst moments of her life. 

The van is silent, Luther’s hands clutching ten-and-two on the steering wheel for dear life. Diego is staring at nothing, not at Klaus, not at any of them. Vanya had tried to help, take stock of his injuries, but he’d swatted her off like a fly and she knew better than to push it. Now she sits next to Ben, shoulders touching, like any semblance of comfort will help him in this moment. Five is muttering to himself, furious. They’d been too late. 

Allison’s hands quaver, pausing in their repetitive strokes, and she lays them on Klaus’s unmoving cheek. His skin is cold, like it always has been, and something that feels like hysterical grief rises up in her throat like vomit. 

They’d just gotten Ben back. They’d gotten Five back. They’d fixed Luther. Klaus is getting sober. They are fixing Vanya. Everyone’s meshing, clicking, working together. They’re saving the universe. The weird time-travel space assassins are still after them, sure, and the constant time-travel jumps are taking their toll on everyone, but god fucking dammit, they’re a family again. Now this. They’d lost another one.

Tears prick at Allison’s eyes, overflow without her consent, and run down her cheeks. Once they start, she can’t stop them, a constant waterfall that drench her face and drop onto Klaus’ curls like hesitant rain. She knows if she opens her mouth, she will sob and cry and scream for her brother. It’s not fair. She leans forward, pressing her face into his head, and squeezes her eyes. She feels like she can’t breathe.

“Allison,” Vanya whispers, and Allison looks up. Vanya’s eyes are swollen, damp, and she reaches a hand out for Allison to grab. 

Something shifts underneath her hands, the slightest movement, and then, without warning, the body in her lap gasps loudly and shoots up, almost headbutting Allison in the process. 

Vanya screams. Allison screams. Klaus stares at both of them and screams as well. Luther swerves the car and it smacks into a signpost with a loud crunch. 

“What the fuck?” yells Five, and the once-silent van explodes into noise.

-

“We need to talk about this,” Luther announces to the family as they finally stumble through the Academy’s front doors. 

It had been an effort to get their van up and running again, Five jumping in and out with every barked order from Diego who was used to fixing up his run down car. Klaus had been uncharacteristically quiet the whole time, only really talking to Ben in hushed whispers. 

“I can’t die,” Klaus says simply, running a hand down his face, “That’s about it.”

“What do you mean, ‘you can’t die’!” Five spits, “That’s absurd, Klaus. I’ve seen you dead, remember?” 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Klaus shrugs, “Can we, just, not? Talk about this. It’s been a long fucking day and I want to go and have a shower. Is that okay with everyone here? Yes? Yes. Okay, good. Later, dears.”

He flicks his goodbye hand at them as he runs up the stairs two at a time. Luther looks like he’s about to protest, but Allison calms with a hand on his arm, “Let him be. We’ll talk later.”

Besides, she’s worried about Diego, who looks like he’s moments from passing out in the grand entrance. He looks far away, brow creased, hands trembling every so slightly. Allison walks over to him slowly, like she’s trying to corral a hissing cat.

“Diego,” she says softly, and he blinks at her, “Let’s go to the infirmary.”

Diego shakes his head, “M’fine, Allison. Klaus was the one who…”

He trails off, that haunted look back. Allison doesn’t know what went down in that dank house they found their brothers in, and she doesn’t really want to know. 

“I-I-I’m,” Diego stutters, and Allison reaches out for him, “I’m gonna find M-Mom.”

With that, he ducks from her touch and heads for the kitchen. She opens her mouth, closes it, and just looks at Vanya helplessly. 

“Give them time,” her sister says, “They’ll talk if they want to.”

She’s being unreasonably optimistic. If there was one thing this family wasn’t known for, it was their healthy emotional discussions or coping methods. 

Five murmurs something to himself, and the girls turn to look at him. He blinks at them, makes a movement with his hand that means absolutely nothing, “I think I’ve figured something out. I need to do some calculations.”

He disappears in a crack of blue light, and Luther just shrugs helplessly at Allison and Vanya, “Come on, let’s go get something to eat.” 

-

Diego can’t sleep.

It’s nothing really that unusual for him. He’s a nocturnal creature, all of his activities taking place after the sun goes down- from following his police radio, to his scheduled fights in whatever underground ring he’s signed up for. Even when he was training at the Police Academy, he liked to take night shifts. Trying to sleep at night has always been difficult for him, with his sleep-cycle so out of whack. But whenever he was tired like this, a soul-deep, crippling exhaustion, he’d always had no problem closing his eyes and going to sleep. 

Except for right now. All he wants to do is sleep. To close his eyes and say goodbye to these past god-awful couple of days. But he can’t. 

He’s in his childhood bedroom, staring at the ceiling, and he can’t fucking sleep. He’s made this room a bit more like his boiler room at the gym, so when he inevitably crashes at the mansion it feels a bit less like his childhood and more like moving on. But right now he feels claustrophobic, trapped, and he’s regretting not going back to the gym.

He doesn’t think it’d make that much of a difference, anyway. When he’d face-planted into his pillow earlier, body succumbing to the sleep he so desperately craved, he’d woken up a mere hour later, not being able to breathe. 

For someone who can hold their breath indefinitely, it was _terrifying_ to feel constriction in his chest, his heart pounding so rapidly that it felt like it was trying to crawl out of his ribcage, and not matter how many times he inhaled air like a dying fish, nothing was going into his burning lungs. 

It took him an stupid amount of time before the vice loosened and he could breathe oxygen again. Anyone else would’ve passed out long before him, but he was cursed to feel every inch of that agony. 

He’d dreamt of Klaus, because of fucking course he had. 

Klaus, looking at him with his bright doe-eyes, trembling and covered in blood that stemmed from a knife in his chest. Diego’s knife. Hands reaching out for Diego, who couldn’t reach him, no matter how hard he tried. He had been frozen, as his brother choked and coughed up slick blood.

 _Why didn’t you save me, Diego?_ his dream-apparition had gargled at him, _Why did you let me die? You could’ve saved me._

Then Klaus’ pale face had morphed in Eudora’s, who reached out for him with desperation in her eyes before a gun went off.

Diego had fallen out of bed, wanting to scream and yell. 

And now, here he is, unable to sleep. Everytime he closes his eyes, he sees Klaus lying so so still and broken on a floor, and he sees Eudora in the same goddamn position and he can’t save either of them.

He’d spent so much of his adult life trying to save Klaus. And then, he’d had to watch those fucking maniacs that Diego had created, like a murderous Frankenstein’s monster, kill him again and again in front of Diego and Diego--

He couldn’t fucking stop them. He had been weak, powerless, as Klaus screamed and choked and just. 

Diego pulls his pillow over his face and yells into it. It doesn’t make him feel any better. 

_Klaus, I’m so sorry_

_Why didn’t you wait?_

He squeezes his eyes shut, pillow stifling any tears that might threaten to fall, and he’s turning over Eudora’s body in that dirty motel room, and the blood that creeps out from under her looks the same as the blood that pooled from Klaus when he’d been shot in the head, slashed across the throat, even fucking disemboweled, those _sadistic_ mother _fuckers_ \-- and maybe this was the time that Klaus didn’t gasp back to life, and Diego would be forever cursed to stare into his brother’s lifeless eyes with the knowledge that he couldn’t save him, like he couldn’t save Eudora, because he is a wretched disappointment and--

Diego throws the pillow, clambers to his feet, and stumbles out of his room. He reaches Klaus’ door, feeling unsteady on his feet because he really is out-of-this-world exhausted, and throws it open without preamble.

The room is empty. Klaus isn’t there. 

His fairy lights that Diego had gifted him so many years ago, after Ben had died, weren’t on. It made Diego’s blood run cold. Klaus _always_ kept the lights on. He claimed it kept the ghosts at bay.

Diego can’t fucking breathe.

He remembers Klaus crawling across that stained floor, slick with his own blood, reaching for Diego’s leg, _Number Two, listen to me_. And Diego couldn’t believe it was him, he was just an trauma-induced hallucination to try and comfort Diego into saving himself, or accepting his fate. And yet--

Klaus isn’t here. He’s not here. Diego failed him.

He feels bile rise up in his throat, turns on heel and sprints for the bathroom. He slams the door open, retches into the bathroom sink, hands fisted in his hair as he tries not to wail in grief.

There’s a frenzied splashing noise and a shriek, “Diego, what the fuck?”

Klaus stares at him from the bathtub, hands gripping the sides of the tub and headphones hanging around his neck. The soft sounds of a clinking piano and drums are coming from it, crooning male vocals, and Diego has an stupid thought that Klaus would be damaging his ears with music up that loud. He also can’t speak. Klaus looks concerned.

“You alright, man?” he asks gently.

Diego feels a hysterical bubble of laughter rise up, and he stifles it with his hand, but it doesn’t help. He’d just witnessed Klaus dying over and over again in the most fucked up, most painful, ways, and Klaus is asking _him_ if he’s alright. And it’s absurd. So fucking absurd. So he laughs. He laughs into the palm of his hand, laughs and laughs until he’s bent over, stomach cramping and mouth tasting of copper. He laughs until something catches in his throat, and he can hear a high-pitched keening noise, his chest churning and he realizes that he’s begun to cry. Laughs morphing into heaving sobs, and he can’t stop it no matter how hard he tries.

“Shit,” Klaus says, and Diego can hear him scrambling out of the tub with a hurried sloshing sound, pulling on a pair of discarded pants, and grabbing Diego’s shoulders. Diego flinches back like he’s being burnt. Klaus’ hands are so cold that they leak ice through shirt. Cold like a corpse.

“Diego, fuck, man, you’re scaring me,” Klaus whines, and reaches for Diego again. He’s careful this time, only one hand brushing Diego’s arm, “What’s going on?”

_Klaus, what’s going on? I don’t know what’s going on._

_I was on my way, why didn’t you wait?_

_Please, stay with me, Number Four, please_

_I gotta go, okay?_

He’s on his knees, cold bath water soaking through his pants, arms wrapped around his midsection because he still can’t _fucking breathe!_ He can’t stop choking on every half laugh-half sob that escapes him. His throat burns. He has a vision of Klaus writhing on the floor, drain cleaner forced down his throat, foaming bile and blood at the mouth. Klaus, dead on the floor, and Diego couldn’t save him. He couldn’t save Eudora, he couldn’t save Mom (waving at him from a crumbling window), he couldn’t save Klaus.

Diego couldn’t stop the three most important people in his life from dying in front of his eyes. What does that make him? 

_Weak._ his father’s voice echoes through his head. He heaves. 

Someone is touching his shoulders, so, so gently, rubbing up and down on his biceps. 

“Diego,” Klaus says, hurried and panicked, “You gotta calm down, man. You’re meant to be the stoic one here. The whole brooding mysterious vigilante thing you got going on? Illusion is shattering, my guy.”

Diego chokes on an unbidden laugh that breaks through his hyperventilating. Klaus- always a rambler in times of stress. But he can’t calm down. He can’t stop sobbing and retching and shaking on this damp bathroom floor, Klaus’ hands fluttering up and down his arms like he doesn’t know where to touch. His heart is thundering in his ears. His whole body feels far too hot. 

Klaus touches his face, softly, and then puts his hands over Diego’s ears. It takes him by surprise, and he flinches, but Klaus just lightly scratches the sides of Diego’s undercut with his fingertips. With all outside sounds muffled, all Diego can focus on his the wet thrum of his heartbeat, and it, it works. He can focus on the echo of the thump thump, the rush of blood to his head, and his chest loosens. His fingers feel numb, and his mouth tastes acidic, but he doesn’t feel like he’s on the brink of dying anymore. 

“There you go,” Klaus says, his voice far away and muted through his hands on Diego’s ears, “You’re okay.”

It sounds like he’s reciting something he heard someone else say. It occurs to Diego that that’s probably true. He has a vision of Klaus in a similar position, in this same spot, but it’s the ghost of Ben comforting him. Except Ben’s hands phase through each time. It hurts Diego’s heart, to think of all the times Klaus needed someone to touch him but no one except the ghost of his dead brother was there. Diego counts himself lucky. 

He pulls back, falls onto his ass with a wet splat, and Klaus moves his hands to Diego’s knees. Diego feels stupidly embarrassed all of a sudden, and he brings his arms up across his chest. 

“You alright?” Klaus asks, looking wary.

Diego nods, “Yeah. Sorry…”

“No, no,” Klaus says, “No need to apologize. I’ve had my fair share of freakouts. It comes with the territory, you know, all the childhood abuse and trauma, that sort of thing. Freakouts are my jam. This family revolves around freakouts.”

Diego chuckles brokenly, “Yeah, this family is fucked up.”

Klaus inclines his head in agreement, smirking, but his eyes are still wide and concerned, “So, beloved brother, wanna talk about it?”

Diego cringes, feeling the panic rise back up in his chest. Klaus’ grabs his wrists, still so gentle, and there’s something different. Tendrils of blue that spread from Klaus’s curved fingers, wrapping themselves around Diego’s wrists, and Diego stares at his brother. Klaus doesn’t even seem to notice the ghostly wisps, eyes darting around the room, in regular Klaus style. Diego feels something hot on the back of his neck, then something freezing cold, a brush on his nape.

_Diego…_

It sounds like Eudora.

Diego rips his hands away from Klaus, who seems to snap back to their current predicament. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Klaus says, still sounding worried. He chews his bottom lip.

Diego feels so fucking on edge. 

“I watched you die, man,” he says, his mouth moving of their own accord. Klaus jerks minutely, teeth biting into his lip. Diego just digs his nails into the palms of his hands, “I watched you die. So many fucking times. And I--”

He breaks off with a growl, resisting the urge to punch something. He takes a shaky breath, “How do I get over that, Klaus?”

Klaus’ closes his eyes, sighs, “I don’t know, Di.”

So that’s it, then. Diego exhales, slowly, and reaches forward for Klaus’ hands again. They sit there like that, holding hands like children, on the wet bathroom floor in the middle of the night. Two messy human beings, carrying a lifetime of abuse and trauma on their shoulders, just trying to roll with the punches. 

“Did you know?” Diego asks softly, “About… you know?”

“That everytime I kick the proverbial bucket, the holy bitch above sends me tumbling back to this mortal realm?” Klaus responds nonsensically, “Nah. Not really. Makes sense though.”

“How?”

“Power over the dead, gateway to the spooky realm, stuff like that,” Klaus shrugs, “Also that no amount of overdoses could keep me down. And that one time at the furry rave.”

“What--” Diego begins, but Klaus shakes his head. 

“Doesn’t matter now.”

They sit in silence again, the only sound a light drip from the bathtub tap. It should feel strange, Diego thinks, sitting here holding hands with his adult brother. But it doesn’t. He doesn’t want to let go. He can feel Klaus’ steady pulse under his fingertips, leaving, breathing, tangible evidence that his brother is alive in front of him and Diego didn’t leave him behind. 

“You’re pretty powerful now, huh,” Diego says to break the silence. Klaus smiles.

“Yeah, I guess. Lots of shit I didn’t know I could do,” he says softly. There’s something behind his eyes, something haunted. Something he’s not saying. Diego doesn’t ask. 

They sit there until the blue light of morning starts to break through the grimy window above the tub, knees touching and fingers interlocked. Diego feels his eyes beginning to shut of their own accord, and finally Klaus helps him move out of the bathroom towards his room. Diego doesn’t need to ask. They don’t bother to clean up the messy bathroom. 

Klaus turns on his fairy lights as Diego crashes onto the bed, the twinkling specks of light illuminating the room prettily. Diego watches through groggy eyes as Klaus picks up what looks like knitting needles and puts his headphones back on, folded into a chair on the other side of the room, but still in Diego’s eyeline. He hums.

Diego goes to sleep. He dreams of Klaus’ laughing. He dreams of Mom’s gentle voice. He dreams of Eudora’s lovely smile, as she says his name with exasperated fondness. 

He sleeps better than he has in months.

He’ll be okay.

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from graceless by the national because I am wildly unoriginal. 
> 
> The song I imagined Klaus listening to in the bathtub is what sarah said by death cab for cutie. Very appropriate song for this fic!
> 
> I've decided to make this work part of a series I'm going to write post-assignments about the tua, centred around ideas woven into this fic to do with Klaus' powers. We're in this for the long haul darlings. 
> 
> sad little note: I haven't written or published anything in over three years because three years ago I became very very sick. I have loved biting the bullet and publishing this, even though I know it's still very rusty and I'm trying to find my writing voice again. Writing about Klaus has been very cathartic, as someone who has mental health issues, abuse and trauma issues, and substance abuse issues. I will definitely explore substance addiction in a later fic, realistically, as as fellow sufferer. So thanks, Umbrella Academy! Ya champs.


End file.
